There is no doubt that Songbird is the real triumph of the Thunderbolts. Melissa had the biggest turn around in terms of competence, confidence, appearance, and importance.

I like when the costume reveals something about the character rather than just revealing the character. So it makes perfect sense for Emma Frost, early Storm, or Gammora to dress the way they do. Less so for Pyslocke or Ms. Marvel despite they hotness they present.

Complications
Motivation: Thrills: The Fixer becomes bored very easily and originally turned to super crime to assuage his boredom.
Obsession: Bert is obsessed with proving his intellectual superiority by condescending to everyone or by inventing unorthodox solutions to simple problems.
Reputation: Fixer has a rep as an arrogant ass willing to work for anyone and betray his team mates.

Paul Norbet Ebersol was born with an intuitive grasp of machinery and a silly name. What with building an electric car at 10 and a robot arm at 13, Bert became quite arrogant and bored taking on one odd job tech position after another. Eventually, the self educated Ebersol just decided to become a costumed villain for the challenge. Over the years, the Fixer worked for Mentallo, HYDRA, Baron Zemo, or just anybody willing to pay him enough to fix something for them. Fixer joined up with Zemo again when they disguised their Master of Evil team as the heroic Thunderbolts. Fixer was also the only jerk to stick with Zemo when it was time to go back to full time villainy. Whatever he's fighting for, Bert is a PL 10 for PC points. He and his multi-use Techno Armor hit caps for dodge defense and missile and laser attacks. Also listed above are several other common attacks of less power, but potentially more utility.

Complications
Motivation: Doing Good: After a bunch of pretending to be a good guy, Abe has sincerely reformed and dedicated to making right what he would once have set wrong.
Prejudice: Abe started off as a super villain and a Master of Evil, and then deceived the world into thinking he was a hero. There are trust issues.
Relationship: Mach-V is like super in love with Songbird and puts his heart into wooing her.

Abner "Abe" Jenkins started off as a Human Torch solo villain before getting passed around the Silver Age until he ended up in Spider-Man's rogues gallery. He was originally an aircraft mechanic before he decided to build suit of armor patterned after a beetle and decided to pick a fight with the Torch and the Thing for kicks. When Zemo called up his Masters of Evil to play at being the heroic Thunderbolts, the formed Beetle signed on as Mach-I. He has sincerely reformed since then and upgraded his suit sized fighter jet several times. This most recent version lets him hit PL 10 caps with ranged blasts, area explosions, and active defenses. It also allows for other lower level attacks and several nifty extras like limited space flight and 360 vision. Mach-V is of course over cost, like all fully loaded battlesuit users.

Complications
Motivation: Doing Good: After a bunch of pretending to be a good guy, Erik has sincerely reformed and dedicated to making right what he would once have set wrong.
Relationship: Atlast is in love with Dallas Riordan enough to betray Zemo and become a hero OR share her body as one half and ionic powered being.
Prejudice: Erik started off as a super villain and a Master of Evil, and then decieved the world into thinking he was a hero. There are trust issues.

Erik Josten was a mercenary who joined the super villain game by exposing himself to ionic rays to team up with the Enchantress against the Avengers. The one time Power Man traded off partners for a while before deciding he would also like the change his name and power set a couple of times as well. Eventually he ended up on Zemo's Masters of Evil as Goliath. When the Thunderbolts showed up, Josten became Atlas. Atlas is seriously the T-Bolts big gun. He's a super strong being of ionic energy at human size and can grow to sixty feet tall on top of that. Josten is a trained combatant who explicitly gets tougher instead of more vulnerable as he grows. And when he's pissed and ready to use Extraordinary effort, he can grow very far past that 60ft "limit". Josten is under PC cost because he's only hitting caps with his combat pairs and nothing else. Still this born follower has the power to nearly kill Hercules.

Complications
Motivation: Greed: Moonstone is always looking out for number one and trying to accrue the power and control she thinks she needs.
Obsession: Karla is seriously crazy about manipulating and playing with people to where she can't even deal straight with people she likes.
Reputation: That crazy manipulative career criminal bitch!
Weakness: Taking away Moonstone's moonstone will also take away her powers and will continue to weaken her until she dies 72 hours later.

Dr. Karla Sofen started off as a legitimate psychiatrist who trained under Doc Samson. She soon switched to Team Evil to continue working with bad guy Dr. Faustus to steal instead of having to actually provide care to patients. One of Dr. Sofen's patients was the original Moonstone, Lloyd Bloch. Desiring his Kree Gravity Stone, Karla f'ed up Bloch's head to the point that he rejected the stone and its power. Thus we gain this overpriced PL 11 version of Moonstone. With one Moonstone bonded to her, Karla becomes a low powered brick. Who can shoot laser beams that easily shear through steel and emit blinding flares and fly and turn intangible and who never runs out of ways to run people's emotions around. Moonstone killed her mom and burned down the house she grew up in.

Hellz yeah! Nice Thunderbolts so far! It's a fun little book, and it's too bad that most of the characters have since disappeared- Zemo went back to being super-evil, Moonstone is a side villainess, and Atlas is God knows where.

Complications
Disability: Helmut once fell into a vat of boiling Adhesive X, totally scarring him for life. Note that "life" may not extend to serial resurrection by means of consciousness transfer.
Enemy: Helmut has a serious hate-on for whomever is calling themselves Captain
America these days and will do just about anything to wreck Steve Roger's life. He also bears grudges against Hawkeye and Luke Cage for daring to control his Thunderbolts.
Motivation: Responsibility: Helmut strives to live up to the legacy of the Baron Zemo's who have come before him. Especially his daddy, Heinrich.

Helmut Zemo was the 13 Baron Zemo and son of Captain America's WWII enemy Baron Heinrich Zemo. Eventually, the younger Nazi nobleman decided to take on Cap in the modern day. He's done a great job so far, getting so far as running the Masters of Evil team that destroyed Avengers Mansion of fooled the world into believing they were the heroic Thunderbolts. Zemo is a mastermind villain, not as science savvy as his dad but with tactile insight and a will to rule backing that up. He's a PL 10 with swords, defenses, and saves. The family recipe of the world's stickiest substance in a spray gun is why Helmut gets PL 11 status; but his over cost nature comes courtesy of being a super competent super villain.

Jabroniville wrote:Hellz yeah! Nice Thunderbolts so far! It's a fun little book, and it's too bad that most of the characters have since disappeared- Zemo went back to being super-evil, Moonstone is a side villainess, and Atlas is God knows where.

Thanks, Jab! I always liked the Thunderbolts, even when I wasn't always reading them. Last I saw Atlas, he was helping Wonder Man on his anti-Avengers crusade. But I also haven't been reading Marvel Now, so he may have done something more recently.

Aerlwyn wrote:I thought immunity mental was 10 pp not 20 pp as they list it in one of the gadget guides as cost 10 pp or is it listed differently in the power profile?

"Mind Shield: Immunity 10 (mental powers) • 10 points"

I've always thought of mental powers as being as common as 20 point energy attacks. Especially on the Marvel Earth, where roughly every other mutant and every single Eternal has mental powers. Even SHIELD has an entire psy-ops division. All of my characters sporting immunity to mental descriptors are going to have to pay for it like its very common because I think it really is.

Super Nova wrote:Gaz I really like your Baron Z, or Citizen V what a great character.

The Sentinels are a series of robots initially built by Bolivar Trask to hunt down mutants. They fought the early X-Men and have reappeared many times with various upgrades over the years. These Sentinels are the Mark It-Doesn't-Really-Matter, built or purchased by whomever finds mutants exceptionally distasteful these days. The Sentinel is a PL 10 sporting capped out close and ranged attacks and a seriously rough grab attack. They get more effective when facing mutants as the long range sensors and favored enemy advantage come into play. Sentinels aren't really self aware, but they can think tactically and communicate among each other well to get more boni that way as well. What really makes Sentinels isn't their capture or kill load-out or their imposing size. It's their unrelenting pursuit of a minority based on the unreasoning hatred of humanity at large. Comic books can always use more purple armored social metaphors to throw around.

Nimrod gets name checked in the Bible as a great hunter before the Lord. Totally appropriate to appropriate the name for this hunter/killer super robot from a post-apocalyptic future. If the basic Sentinels are the Terminator then this guy is the T-1000. He even comes with shape shifting ability to disguise himself! That ability to shift his components also lets Nimrod develop new powers to go with his capped out blast, shield, and move object. All these powerful attacks are aimed at whatever super beings oppose the Sentinels. Nimrod knows exactly what super beings those are as well thanks to his extensive database and ability to instantly scan superhuman capabilities. Nimrod is very scary and very expensive. I've been saying "him" instead of "it" because Nimrod once lived for months as a human dude in a New York apartment.